Kathy Sheridan: Culture of abuse on social media is malign

Where do you stand on the question of imposing restrictions on unvaccinated people?

On Monday night, journalist Joe O’Shea argued that unvaccinated people have “complicated” life for the vaccinated for long enough and “we have to start compelling them” to take vaccines.

When Claire Byrne took issue with the notion of compulsion, O’Shea insisted that he was not talking about “marching people down to health centres” or “forcing” them to take vaccines. “They had a right to decide if they wanted to lock themselves out of society,” he said. “You can compel people or you can let them know that if this is the decision you take then unfortunately we cannot have you in our spaces, we cannot have you with the risk that you pose to our society, to our people, to our loved ones.”

For airing those views O’Shea and Claire Byrne Live were accused online – including by some named posters – of verging on “incitement” to hatred. A sample of responses: “Ape”; “Hate speech”; “Cult tv”; “Real hatred coming from this man”; “People like Joe are going to be the cause of real violence”; “Don’t worry [about] it. The ‘unvaccinated’ know that they are hated and are prepared”. Cue a YouTube video titled “Get Ready for the Hate” – an image of Josef Mengele (the Nazi who performed medical experiments in Auschwitz); a blurry snap of a letter from an English school saying a child had died in her sleep with the poster’s comment, “How many more do we have to lose before you say no more??” And the old reliable: “Backhanders from pharmaceutical companies.”

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And that was just a sample of Irish Twitter about a single topic on a Monday night.

When the show asked 1,000 adults in an Amarach smartphone poll, “Are you in favour of mandatory vaccination against Covid-19?” A total of 46 per cent voted yes and 42 per cent no. The tight result suggests that the issue warranted an airing.

If a discussion around social and personal responsibility is not appropriate now, then when? And what do “incitement” or “hate” actually mean in such a context ?

The real problem is that permeating it all – and against which no society can legislate – is the presumption of bad faith. The insistent, corrosive implication that every topic, policy or proposal with which someone disagrees must be driven by deliberate cruelty, hate, greed, profit motive or theft. The dissenters, of course, are heroic Joan-of-Arc figures (anonymously, mostly) standing up to The Man.

Our political culture, for all its flaws, is one that accommodates robust debate, where the stoking of fear or hate is instantly recognised and rarely rewarded

Can we simply ignore it? The brutal killing at a constituency clinic of British backbench MP David Amess prompted a rush of politicians and Tory media to blame social media and to frame a “David’s Law”. This unleashed a powerful pushback, which declared there was no evidence to support that assertion in the Amess case and that any such suggestion was a self-exonerating effort by the very same politicians and media who have spent years stoking hatred and division. The dissenters had a point: there is no shortage of headlines, quotes and dog whistles to support them. But this suggests there is room for a “but” where there are threats, intimidation, violence or murder and that is simply intolerable.

Attacks on British politicians are nothing new. Four MPs were murdered during the Northern Ireland troubles but it was the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a Britain First neo-Nazi in 2016 – 10 days before the Brexit referendum – that triggered a violent new era in British politics. Threats of violence, rape and murder have become commonplace, nurtured and spread on social media. A former parliamentary adviser says she once reported 100 death threats in a week. Social media may not be the only culprit but it is a hugely significant one.

Could it happen here ? Our politicians already talk about abuse, intimidation and physical threats as part of everyday life. They rarely mention the accusations of corruption and backhanders on social media and in casual jokes, even if they are defamatory and add to a generally hostile environment around them. Yet these are ordinary men and women elected by the people, working for the people and reflecting the people in all their faults, limitations and virtues. Our political culture, for all its flaws, is one that accommodates robust debate, where the stoking of fear or hate is instantly recognised and rarely rewarded.

The culture of abuse extends beyond politicians. For a flavour of how liberated and brave we are with language, talk to a frontline worker, a supermarket checkout operator, a waiter in your local restaurant

But other elements have been introduced in recent years. Though rarely voiced out loud during hopeful discussions about a united Ireland, many fear the bitter, aggressive tribal allegiances of Northern Ireland and the intimidatory language that comes with them. The suspicions, threats and language of other cultures are being imported into ours via social media. The confusing of electoral systems whether wilfully or through ignorance; the language of “traitor”, “not our Taoiseach”, “the free state” ; the language and symbols of QAnon such as nooses and the casual use of the word “paedo”.

The culture of abuse extends beyond politicians. For a flavour of how liberated and brave we are with language, talk to a frontline worker, the receptionist in the emergency department, a supermarket checkout operator, a waiter in your local restaurant. We all bear responsibility for the culture that thinks “f**k you!” or a drink thrown over a politician are brave and principled stands. But where does it end?